I've been away for a long time (doing research for a friend), but this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun has tempted me back! The directive is to identify which event in ancestral history you would like to be a part of via Time Machine. Well, that is easy for me -while any day in any life would be a thrill to witness, one event really struck me when I first learned of it.
I would like to be a part of the travels of my Great-great grandparents and family to America in 1856. Teunis Snijders and Grietje van der Bie left their home in Goudswaard, Zuid-Holland and sailed from Rotterdam to New York with their 2 boys, 8 and 10, and my 3-month-old great-grandmother Trijnte (later Kate Snyder, married Levi Cole). When I first found this passenger list (long before Internet databases) I had a young daughter myself. I knew how difficult it had been for me simply to get this child a few miles down the road (in my car) to the grocery store!! I could not (and still cannot) imagine traveling off to a whole new land, new language, new people with 2 kids and a three-month-old. Oiy! The Snyder family traveled somehow from NY to Michigan where they lived for a time in Washtenaw Co., then moved on to Kent Co. Years later I learned that Grietje's mother, Trijntje van der Jagt and at least 3 brothers and a sister also came to the United States and settled in Allegan Co.
I have the greatest respect and admiration for these - and my other - immigrant ancestors and I wonder if I could do what they did?
